A spokesperson for the university said no one in the group was injured. Lynn University’s Sports Management department tweeted via @LynnUSportsMgmt that all the students were OK.

“We didn’t expect it to be that bad, but when we saw the car smoke, we thought, ‘OK, let’s just duck,’” said student Dan Fuiman.

Fuiman and 10 of his Lynn University classmates were at the Daytona Speedway Saturday. Some picked seats near the finish line.

Complete chaos erupted, however, just as the crowd was supposed to be celebrating.

“Everyone was just in shock that this was happening,” Fuiman said. “It took everyone a couple of seconds to really get their brain back.”

Two professors at the race didn’t pick seats near the finish line, and panicked when they saw the wreck.

“Everyone’s reaction is, ‘Oh my goodness gracious, this is a horrible accident.’ Our first reaction was, ‘Wow, we really hope our students weren’t right there,’” said Ted Curtis, one of the professors.

While Fuiman and his classmates escaped injury, they didn’t escape debris. Curtis tweeted students were covered in salt and tiny tire shreds.

“All of our students -- who sat at start/finish, four rows up -- are messy and smelling of oil and gasoline ... but are just fine!!” the tweet read.